Hi everybody and welcome back to our blog once again. I’ll start off by saying a big happy Easter for next weekend and we hope you have a great long weekend, whether it be a camping trip away, or just a weekend at home watching the footy with a cold beer in one hand and an Easter Bilby in the other. Our weekend will be spent working ‘to the bone’ on our station, but more about that later.
Last time we left you, we had just finished up our stay in the amazing Shark Bay region and I believe we mentioned about how we were given a big Spanish Mackerel. Our next couple of days pretty much revolved around how to cook the amazing fish and with what sides. We had Mackerel for breakfast lunch and dinner for days in a row and even that wasn’t enough to get through it all, so we ended up giving a couple of kgs away to some of our neighbours (who were about 10kms away from our camp).
From Shark Bay, we had 4 days until we started work and a total of about 250kms to drive. So we weren’t really in any great rush. We stopped into a place called Hamelin Pool, which is famous for having some of the oldest organisms in the world living in the shallow seawater. These ancient organisms are called ‘stromatolites’ and they pretty much look like a pile of mud that has been festering for millions of years. Geologically speaking they are very interesting, but not very interesting to look at, though we did snap some great pictures of the crystal clear turquoise water of the bay.
Full of knowledge and lunch, we headed north to Carnarvon, which is the largest town near to where we are now working. We spent the night at the Capricorn Caravan Park and met the nice couple running the park. It came to conversation that I was a sparky, so I was lined up with a small job to be paid in beer and wine. Apparently most of their staff had recently left, so we were also offered jobs at the caravan park, which we had to decline. While in Carnarvon we stocked up on groceries from woolies and of course beer, and fresh vegies from a road side stall.
The next day we drove into beautiful Coral Bay, with a quick stop at Minilya Creek for some bird watching. We saw groups of green budgies, cockatiels, a few brown hawks and kingfishers.
Coral Bay is our closest town and exists only because of its amazing location on the Ningaloo Reef. It is a very nice protected bay, full of coral, and sea creatures. It is one of the few places in the world where people are able to snorkel with Whale Sharks, Humpback Whales, and Manta Rays. We had 2 days until we started work, so we thought ‘why don’t we do a Manta Ray tour’? So the next morning we boarded the boat with about 8 others and went out on a snorkelling expedition. The day was amazing! We snorkelled over beautiful coral beds full of colour, hundreds of fish species, sea turtles, reef sharks and rays. At one stage the captain yelled out that he had spotted a large Tiger Shark and asked if anyone wanted to jump in the water with it. We weren’t sure if he was serious, but said yes anyway and a few of us were able to snorkel with a 3.5m Tiger Shark. (Definitely the highlight of the day). Unfortunately, we didn’t get to see any Manta Rays but it was such an amazing day, that we didn’t mind too much.
You know that ‘Sunday blues’ feeling you get before starting work for the week? Yeah well, we definitely had some of those feels going on the night before we headed to our new jobs. So for those of you who don’t know, we are currently living on the Ningaloo Reef at Warroora (pronounced warra) Station. It is a cattle station, with approx 700 cattle, it has accommodation types ranging from shearers quarters ($30 p/n) up to self-contained homes with nice furnishings and beautiful ocean views over the Ningaloo coast ($270 p/n) and 50kms of wilderness beach camping.
We drove from Coral Bay to the northern entrance to the station, which is about 27kms and aired down the tyres for the next 25kms of dirt track. We drove south along the coast towards the homestead. We were starting to find out just how remote it is out here. It wasn’t the greatest weather, overcast, very humid and 40 degrees. Eventually we arrived to ‘the office’ where we were greeted by Marty, Muriel and kids (with a baby goat they had just rescued from a crack in a rock ledge). We were shown our home, which is a 2 bedroom portable house, with a nice kitchen and a bathroom. We are lucky enough to have a rainwater tank, otherwise only bore water would be the option. It is taking a little while to acclimatize to the station life. The simple things that everybody takes for granted like; unlimited drinking water, phone signal, TV, radio and grocery stores just around the corner become more of an issue. We are starting our own veggie garden, collecting chicken eggs, eating freshly caught snapper a few nights a week and eating as much road kill as possible (only joking). We have also started storing Pumbas drool (just in case we run out of drinking water)… (still joking) We have just sent through our first online food order and hope to receive it on Thursday (the mail day).
Now, to get to our work duties. As you can imagine, there is no shortage of work to do on a large station like this (250km squared I think). We have weekly cattle water runs (80kms on the dirt bikes), 20kms of fencing, ongoing cleaning of the various accommodations, campsite maintenance, checking in campers and selling shop items, fixing endless broken machinery and water leaks, grass slashing, chain sawing, hay bailing and general house duties as well as anything that pops up.
Safe to say, we are pretty busy during our 5 and a half days work. Add to that 35-45 degree weather and persistent sticky flies. You can probably see that we have our ups and downs with regards to work. On the plus side, we are living on the Ningaloo coastline and can go snorkelling, fishing and surfing on amazing secluded beaches anywhere on the station. On a side note, the fishing here is bloody incredible. Most times, we come home with large delicious Spangled Emperor (Snapper) for dinner, but have also caught, flathead, dart, sharks, rays and had plenty of big ‘runs’. We also had a surf at our own private surf break, though it did end with us paddling in prematurely due to a 3m shark coming in to have a look.
We have been quite lucky with our wildlife spotting, and anybody who knows us would know that we love our animals. Every time we see something new, we are trying to get a photo and look it up. We have spotted Perenties, Long tailed Dunnarts, Ospreys, White Bellied Sea Eagles, Bustards, Goats, lots of other lizard species and lots of other bird species, turtles, sharks, stingrays, clams and cowrie shells.
Hi everybody and welcome back to our blog once again. I’ll start off by saying a big happy Easter for next weekend and we hope you have a great long weekend, whether it be a camping trip away, or just a weekend at home watching the footy with a cold beer in one hand and an Easter Bilby in the other. Our weekend will be spent working ‘to the bone’ on our station, but more about that later.
Last time we left you, we had just finished up our stay in the amazing Shark Bay region and I believe we mentioned about how we were given a big Spanish Mackerel. Our next couple of days pretty much revolved around how to cook the amazing fish and with what sides. We had Mackerel for breakfast lunch and dinner for days in a row and even that wasn’t enough to get through it all, so we ended up giving a couple of kgs away to some of our neighbours (who were about 10kms away from our camp).
From Shark Bay, we had 4 days until we started work and a total of about 250kms to drive. So we weren’t really in any great rush. We stopped into a place called Hamelin Pool, which is famous for having some of the oldest organisms in the world living in the shallow seawater. These ancient organisms are called ‘stromatolites’ and they pretty much look like a pile of mud that has been festering for millions of years. Geologically speaking they are very interesting, but not very interesting to look at, though we did snap some great pictures of the crystal clear turquoise water of the bay.
Full of knowledge and lunch, we headed north to Carnarvon, which is the largest town near to where we are now working. We spent the night at the Capricorn Caravan Park and met the nice couple running the park. It came to conversation that I was a sparky, so I was lined up with a small job to be paid in beer and wine. Apparently most of their staff had recently left, so we were also offered jobs at the caravan park, which we had to decline. While in Carnarvon we stocked up on groceries from woolies and of course beer, and fresh vegies from a road side stall.
The next day we drove into beautiful Coral Bay, with a quick stop at Minilya Creek for some bird watching. We saw groups of green budgies, cockatiels, a few brown hawks and kingfishers.
Coral Bay is our closest town and exists only because of its amazing location on the Ningaloo Reef. It is a very nice protected bay, full of coral, and sea creatures. It is one of the few places in the world where people are able to snorkel with Whale Sharks, Humpback Whales, and Manta Rays. We had 2 days until we started work, so we thought ‘why don’t we do a Manta Ray tour’? So the next morning we boarded the boat with about 8 others and went out on a snorkelling expedition. The day was amazing! We snorkelled over beautiful coral beds full of colour, hundreds of fish species, sea turtles, reef sharks and rays. At one stage the captain yelled out that he had spotted a large Tiger Shark and asked if anyone wanted to jump in the water with it. We weren’t sure if he was serious, but said yes anyway and a few of us were able to snorkel with a 3.5m Tiger Shark. (Definitely the highlight of the day). Unfortunately, we didn’t get to see any Manta Rays but it was such an amazing day, that we didn’t mind too much.
You know that ‘Sunday blues’ feeling you get before starting work for the week? Yeah well, we definitely had some of those feels going on the night before we headed to our new jobs. So for those of you who don’t know, we are currently living on the Ningaloo Reef at Warroora (pronounced warra) Station. It is a cattle station, with approx 700 cattle, it has accommodation types ranging from shearers quarters ($30 p/n) up to self-contained homes with nice furnishings and beautiful ocean views over the Ningaloo coast ($270 p/n) and 50kms of wilderness beach camping.
We drove from Coral Bay to the northern entrance to the station, which is about 27kms and aired down the tyres for the next 25kms of dirt track. We drove south along the coast towards the homestead. We were starting to find out just how remote it is out here. It wasn’t the greatest weather, overcast, very humid and 40 degrees. Eventually we arrived to ‘the office’ where we were greeted by Marty, Muriel and kids (with a baby goat they had just rescued from a crack in a rock ledge). We were shown our home, which is a 2 bedroom portable house, with a nice kitchen and a bathroom. We are lucky enough to have a rainwater tank, otherwise only bore water would be the option. It is taking a little while to acclimatize to the station life. The simple things that everybody takes for granted like; unlimited drinking water, phone signal, TV, radio and grocery stores just around the corner become more of an issue. We are starting our own veggie garden, collecting chicken eggs, eating freshly caught snapper a few nights a week and eating as much road kill as possible (only joking). We have also started storing Pumbas drool (just in case we run out of drinking water)… (still joking) We have just sent through our first online food order and hope to receive it on Thursday (the mail day).
Now, to get to our work duties. As you can imagine, there is no shortage of work to do on a large station like this (250km squared I think). We have weekly cattle water runs (80kms on the dirt bikes), 20kms of fencing, ongoing cleaning of the various accommodations, campsite maintenance, checking in campers and selling shop items, fixing endless broken machinery and water leaks, grass slashing, chain sawing, hay bailing and general house duties as well as anything that pops up.
Safe to say, we are pretty busy during our 5 and a half days work. Add to that 35-45 degree weather and persistent sticky flies. You can probably see that we have our ups and downs with regards to work. On the plus side, we are living on the Ningaloo coastline and can go snorkelling, fishing and surfing on amazing secluded beaches anywhere on the station. On a side note, the fishing here is bloody incredible. Most times, we come home with large delicious Spangled Emperor (Snapper) for dinner, but have also caught, flathead, dart, sharks, rays and had plenty of big ‘runs’. We also had a surf at our own private surf break, though it did end with us paddling in prematurely due to a 3m shark coming in to have a look.
We have been quite lucky with our wildlife spotting, and anybody who knows us would know that we love our animals. Every time we see something new, we are trying to get a photo and look it up. We have spotted Perenties, Long tailed Dunnarts, Ospreys, White Bellied Sea Eagles, Bustards, Goats, lots of other lizard species and lots of other bird species, turtles, sharks, stingrays, clams and cowrie shells.
